Background of Area | Project Overview | Community Meeting | The Way Forward | ALL MULTIMEDIA

“The god term of journalism – the be-all and end-all, the term without which the entire enterprise fails to make sense – is the public. Insofar as journalism is grounded, it is grounded in the public” – James Carey

Public journalism comes from a framework proposing that the framing of public issues should place citizens at the centre; the approach aids journalists in becoming a vessel for change by recognising, describing and exploring social issues which enable the public in reclaiming their political agency. It calls for a more active role from journalists, and a consciousness of the framing power of news.

The residents of Hoogenoeg, Mary Waters and Sun City shared similar concerns during the focus group, pertaining to the occurrence of crime in the area and identified the youth as problematic, as well as a generational divide among parents and children, as well as among community members.

Public journalism is grounded in the public, and therefore our group took their cue from the community in identifying news stories for the different specialisations which would give an adequate platform in the reproduction of them. Afrikaans is the predominant language spoken in these areas, and thus much of the content produced is in Afrikaans. The group identified and produced relevant and diverse stories in an attempt to reconcile the generations, by enabling them to converse with each other through the stories. 

This objective can be viewed in the material produced for, and by, the communities. A newsletter was produced for adults, and the youth received an interactive poster. Design and colour present on both display a sense of solidarity, as they correlate with each other.

The sound slide producers chose to identify a mother in the community, investigate the sale of alcohol to minors and recognise GENX, youth group, as the subjects for their slide shows.  Print stories informed parents about the use of oka-pipes (as concerns had been raised about young children smoking it), a young women who wishes to establish a youth group.

The TV students adopted the diamond-structure approach towards their content, whereby allowing community members, instead of authority figures to tell stories. They produced a documentary on Sheila Botha and a ‘self-defence’ video in an effort to ‘give back’ to the community by means of empowerment.